I just created this facebook group SANCTUARY FOR TERROR because I sometimes suffer in extreme terror and lonely despair, sometimes at night, and sometimes it's overwhelming. I've found that certain friends, some who I have added there, really help me root myself in reality, in good sense, in self love at these times. I often wish there was a place that for 24 hours a day I could go to and receive that love, along with my own self love, not instead of it. Maybe others would like a place like this too. Who knows? Maybe you or I might come here in the middle of losing it, maybe in the middle of the night and someone else might be here to help remind you or me to love myself. They might offer a hand, a branch, a reminder, a moment of stillness, or even just a friend to chat to or sit with while it transforms. Today I opened myself to the idea, while I was being loved and helped by my friend Clare, that this could transform. These periods of overwhelming meltdown COULD be a route towards the usual terrified reactions lessening. I've never even allowed in the idea that this could be a path to transformation. I hear the words but am so so locked in 'no no no no' and gasping and shaking and imagining horrifying loops of some scenario that isn't even happening in this moment. But even the IDEA of what might happen is killing me, terrifying me, suffocating me, making me puke sometimes. And the reaction in my body has been so overwhelming for so many years that I've believed it will ALWAYS be like this.
But maybe it won't. Maybe I'm a different man who experiences this each time. And each time there are different possibilities. Clare says that for her, loving herself in it and reminding herself that nothing is actually happening right now, she's still here, sitting in a chair, breathing - this can really be helpful.
Also, there's something beautiful in making a pledge to myself that I will not abandon myself. I will be the one that loves myself, loves this terrified shaking boy even if there's no one else around, even if everyone has left or is unavailable. I am available to love myself, talk soothingly to myself and know that it will pass. Even if it takes hours, it never goes on forever.
This is a new WILLINGNESS TO TRANSFORM and to believe it's even a possibility - it might be slow, just tiny bit by tiny bit, but if I allow this new attitude of willingness and meet the terror when it comes in these ways, I have witnesses that have done this and reported back that they are freer, and that the agony and despair does get weaker. And sometimes it's not slow, sometimes it's instant. There are no rules.
So I've created this group SANCTUARY FOR TERROR to be with each other in this transformation, sometimes to discuss it when feeling fine, and sometimes to come and write and be supported when the clouds gather, or even in the middle of a melt down.
And here I am again, shaking slightly less as I write this, gasping slightly less, some loneliness in my solar plexus...shivering a little...something is moving...
...if this feels like something that could support you, please come to the Sanctuary any time you like.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/sanctuaryforterror/
